Court-fee classification turns on the substance of the plaint, not its wording, where alienation cancellation is effectively sought.

For court-fee purposes, the substance of the plaint as a whole controls, not the form of the prayer clause. A declaration that property is wakf is purely declaratory, but a further request that alienations by mutwallis be declared null and void and ineffectual in substance seeks cancellation of those alienations. Such relief is not merely consequential under Section 7(iv)(c) of the Court-fees Act, because it directly affects the alienated property and is separately valuable. The document states that where the relief effectively undoes completed alienations, the suit is not purely declaratory and attracts ad valorem court fee on the value of the alienated property.

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Issues: Whether the suit, though framed as one for declaration, was in substance a suit for cancellation of alienations and therefore required ad valorem court fee rather than the fixed fee for a purely declaratory suit.

Analysis: The proper test was held to be the substance of the plaint taken as a whole, not the form of the prayer clause. A declaration that the property was wakf was purely declaratory, but the further prayer that the alienations made by the mutwallis were null and void, and ineffectual against the wakf property, in substance sought to set aside or cancel those alienations. Such relief was not a mere consequential relief within the meaning of Section 7(iv)(c) of the Court-fees Act, because it was a substantive relief affecting the subject-matter of the alienations and capable of separate valuation. The Court distinguished authorities treating similar prayers as declaratory, and held that where the relief effectively undoes completed alienations binding on the parties, the suit cannot be treated as purely declaratory.

Conclusion: The suit was not a purely declaratory suit. The plaintiffs were bound to pay ad valorem court fee on the value of the alienated property, and rejection of the plaint for failure to pay the proper court fee was .

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed because the real relief claimed included cancellation of alienations and therefore attracted valuation as a substantive money-valued claim rather than the fixed fee for a bare declaration.

Ratio Decidendi: For court-fee purposes, the decisive test is the substance of the relief disclosed by the plaint as a whole; where a declaration necessarily operates to set aside or cancel an alienation, the claim is one for substantive relief and not a purely declaratory suit with mere consequential relief.

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